it's thursday december fifth eight pm in washington d.c. i'm megan lopez and you are watching our t.v. but we want to begin tonight with breaking news former south african president nelson mandela passed away at age fifty pm local time at his home in johannesburg south africa he was ninety five years old because of his lifelong crusade for tolerance equality and peace mondello has been viewed as a hero to people all around the world and was the biggest leader against apartheid south africans have been gathering outside of the mandela family home since the news broke of the former president's death they brought flowers and notes to bid their departed leader farewell current south african president jacob zuma announced

non-dollar as passing and commented on his nation's profound loss our nation has lost its greatest son our people have lost a father but though we knew. that this day would come nothing can diminish our sense of the profound and enjoyed in loss the country will now experience ten days of mourning and remembrance world leaders took the time to express their condolences this evening here's president obama. he achieved more than could be expected of any man. from the days gone home. but we've lost one of the most influential courageous and profoundly good human

beings that any of us will share time with on this earth. you no longer belongs to us he belongs to the ages president george h.w. bush said he was a man of tremendous moral courage who changed the course of history in this country president bill clinton said that nelson mandela taught us so much about so many things perhaps the greatest lesson especially for young people is that while bad things do happen to good people we still have the freedom and responsibility to decide how to respond to injustice cruelty and violence and how they will affect our spirits hearts and minds mandela's health has been failing consistently over the past few months due to a recurring lung infection he was last in the hospital in september but was eventually discharged and allowed to return home artie's policy or brings us a look back at this great leaders layovers legacy he's the man who pulled a troubled and divided land back from the brink of civil war the man who after

twenty seven tough years behind bars walks free from prison in his heart was not revenge but i think that he's the greatest legacy to this country this reconciliation. in the last three decades the world tirelessly polished the image of nelson mandela and image recognized around the world only coca-cola is better known better men who struggle for racial equality again south africa's ruling white minority had a dark side the world has conveniently forgotten about nelson mandela ventilator of a struggle. a radical. someone. embraced violence and as a necessary political instrument at a particular juncture in our history mandela and his colleagues were forced underground when the authorities banned the movement in one nine hundred sixty this house was the secret headquarters of the african national congress it was here in

the early sixty's that mandela and his comrades launched the armed struggle it was also here that most of them were wasted put on trial and same turns to life in prison at what was known as the rivonia trial in one thousand nine hundred sixty four mandela and ten of his colleagues faced the death penalty for sabotage one of the men alongside him in the dock was dennis goldberg an engineer and bomb maker in the sabotage campaign he spent twenty two years behind bars nelson mandela was called a terrorist because he took up arms against their party government. governments lie to support governments they claim legitimacy the west had big investments gold mines industry the sea transport links to the east the cape route was very important they supported their party their government any opponent was there for a terrorist it's don't fall apart it would have lasted as long as it did if the

world community hadn't closed ranks behind the white government british prime minister margaret thatcher denounced mandela as a terrorist and was once quoted as saying anyone who thought the a.n.c. could rule south africa was living in cloud cuckoo land years later she welcomed mandela to downing street. washington also did a one hundred eighty degree turn although it was only in two thousand and eight that if we moved all references to mandela and his colleagues as terrorists from its database the change in heart according to this man whose lawyer father was an activist in the south african underground was because of a change in the political climate with perestroika and glasnost the collapse of the soviet union in one nine hundred ninety. the self interest of the west in terms of preserving or protecting south africa from falling into the hands of the communists . became less and less significant and less and less important mandela was not alone in world leaders who endured a love hate relationship at the hands of the west darlings of the west one moment

villains the next libya's moammar gadhafi egypt's hosni mubarak we keep leaks founder julian assange to name but a few south african journalist chris bishop believes the one nine hundred sixty four trial that saw mandela and his comrades sentenced to life helped turn the world in their favor during the trial. these gentleman who were on draw the rivonia trial as they went from being the accused of being people on in the dark as slowly transformed they became the benjamin franklin's of africa they became the freedom fighters they began the man of principle who is standing up merely for the rights of others and it's turned world opinion around from reviled terrorist to one of the greatest freedom fighters to have ever walked the earth the story of nelson mandela is remarkable a man who stood up for the rights of people everywhere but also

a familiar tale of governments putting a garland of flowers around your neck one day and a rope the next policy or r.t. johannesburg south africa. i want to bring danny schechter into the conversation to talk about the life and legacy of nelson mandela danny has made six documentaries. about mandela and spent forty years getting to know a great leader he was recently invited to south africa by mandela himself for the screening of a film about the former president's life and is the author of madiba a disease the many faces of nelson mandela now danny we know what my diva was like as a public figure and what he did for the country what was nelson mandela like as a person. well you know it was very hard to distinguish between his personal life and his political life because he said the struggle is my life he organized himself around his commitment to free and to work in the freedom struggle to free the

people of south africa he was very humble about that he was always clear that he believed in collective leadership not individual celebrity it's you know wonderful that the world is recognizing him as they are tonight bringing the world together but at the same time it's almost as if nobody really wanted the discuss his contributions before he died you know the whole story is about his death not about his life and his legacy and it should be the movie mandela long walk to freedom is being shown around the world there was a big royal premiere in london today he's on everybody's mind and he's somebody who should be on everybody's mind because he offered a lot to the world in terms of peace justice reconciliation his idea is to change not only were successful in south africa but they've been spired so many people around the world he changed the world and he changed me too because he gave me an opportunity to participate with them to be part of his entourage to document

his achievements in many instances and it's something that i'll never forget but it's also something that the world can't forget because we need mandela's puriel in this world people who are more selfless and who are really committed to the principles of change not just the principles of personal celebrity and now you have just mentioned that he is right now is being remembered for his death and what's going on in the present can you go i don't walk us through some of his most notorious accomplishments that made him this great leader. well they were really in a tory s. and many cases they were very brave sometimes considered by others to be stupid when he went from a leading a nonviolent movement to leading a violent resistance against the part date when he was jailed and he said to the court i am prepared to die for my believe sent his lawyers not don't say that happens is giving them an excuse but that's he said no i'm not saying it for the

judges i'm saying it for the people to inspire them and he was sentenced to life imprisonment and you know on the one of the worst prisons in the world and he survived eighteen years for ten years there was no heat there was no running water in his cells so this was a man who endured a tremendous deprivation and abuse and yet emerged from it without hating his jailers without hating the people who imprisoned him but calling for a new south africa into racial just south africa and i think that was his achievement that's why even the people who hated him and fought against him in the end came to his side and worked with him and admired him and i think that's what we've seen here an ability to bring people together of all different backgrounds and that was his big achievement you know the south africa as it was though it was very poor very unequal in terms of economics and it still is to this day he didn't

have a magic wand he couldn't just change everything just by force of will but his example and his determination was important and inspiring others to get involved and to stay involved in not only in south africa but in the world don't forget there the free nelson mandela movement was a global movement movement of people all over the world who fought for his release and for freedom in south africa and that's an achievement that was really impressive i was watching bano on another channel talking about it. i worked with bondo on the sun city album in one nine hundred eighty six calling for an end to apartheid many artists many cultural figures were part of that struggle so to speak and it's still ongoing the long walk to freedom is not over even though the movie and the second at certain time the actual walk continues for those people who really were moved by mandela to realize that we need to get together to make change

in this world and that it's only when people move you know change comes from below not from above not from a you know an anointed celebrity it comes from people willing to sacrifice and struggle for their beliefs mandela embodied that and that's why he was loved and admired the way he is that's why president obama and every president is going to say something nice about him but the reality is that the problems in south africa are still very deep as they are throughout the poor countries in the world and we have to care about them as mandela cared about them and danny schechter author of madiba ate his the thank you so much for of bringing us your insight. fourteen so-called computer hacktivists associated with anonymous appeared in california federal court today over charges that they conducted a quarter unaided cyber attack on pay pal visa and master card that is tribute a denial of service attack or d.d. o. s.

hack overwhelmed pay pal's online services back in two thousand and eleven and temporarily knocked the company off line today the pay pal fourteen reached a plea deal that will acquire each to pay five thousand six hundred dollars and plead to a felony which will be dismissed after a year with good behavior two members of the group did not want a potential felony on their records and instead it took a misdemeanor charge and ninety days in prison this hack was part of operation payback which was in retaliation for pay pal refusing to accept or perform financial transactions for a secret spilling organization for the secret spilling organization wiki leaks in the wake of the biggest document drop in u.s. history to fill us in on the very latest i was joined by one of the attorneys for the group stanley cohen as well as our two web producer andrew blake who has been closely following this case and i started with stanley by asking him to explain this plea deal and the latest from the courthouse. we've been involved in the goshi

ations for over a year and negotiations based koncz strength not weakness based upon principle not acquiescence that does not involve cooperation and not involve any of the defendants for announcing their conduct they will stood up and said we did what you said we did we as critical was civil disobedience we believe we have an appropriate actor must seem willing to pay the price after a tremendous amount of negotiations and back and forth in challenges we reached a conclusion a deal with eleven of the defendants pleading guilty to a felony counts and the misdemeanor count sentencing adjourned for a year if there are no new arrests at the end of the year the felony is dismissed the misdemeanor is left in place and people will sensibly get conditional discharges at that point the restitution the amount of fifty six hundred dollars per person pay pal's that it was five point five million as a result of this plea disposition pay-pal may end up getting as much as eighty

thousand dollars back and these folks who took a principled stand continue. with their principles in fact and continue determined to. play an active role in the future of their lives the community in the world so what is next for this group are is there anything against them using the internet for instance or being able to log on anything like that you know the conditions they've been on pretrial release for almost two years two years nominal conditions are allowed to continue with their lives there's been no changes their students their bloggers their writers are on internet they're on twitter they talk. you know they continue with their lives this is this is it it's comparable in some jurisdictions to the deferred prosecution which basically says ok we're going to put this off for a year and if everything works out fine the case get dismissed well here in the day everything works out fine the defendants are going. mr burton as one experiment

said to be one of the persons that to marry they walked out of the court distributers a badge of honor and courage for stanley cohen one of the attorneys for these and this group of anonymous activist thank you so much for joining us and please keep us updated as this trial kind of continues or as these that these people continue and within the next year now and your let's talk about the precedent being set here has anyone ever been successfully prosecuted for a d.d. o. s. attack you know it's really weird that we're not necessarily setting a precedent here because they put in this guilty plea had this gone to trial and we had a group of you know civilians get up there and hear about what's being called a hack but is really just overloading a website a whole bunch of times then we might have a precedent we might find out that oh if you did also website you can and have to do this you have to do this and they can they can screw you for really long time there was actually case several years ago kind of the infancy of the whole anonymous movement when some kid head did

a detox attacks where you just overflowed a website he did it against the church of scientology they actually turned around they went after him and he served a year in prison for clicking a button that took down scientology dot dot church i don't know what the hell they're their website it's called there's another related to this incident there's another one happening right now in the eastern district court for i'm sorry the eastern district region federal courts just down the road where a handful of legit hacktivist operated a similar campaign against a bunch of anti-censorship web sites also in the tell you for the kind of snafu that broke out after we began releasing all sorts of confidential information back in two thousand and ten so that just happen and then you know right now that's happening right now but just earlier earlier this month i believe around a week ago a fellow was sentenced to a few years probation and ordered to pay one hundred eighty three thousand dollars fine i believe a hundred eighty. thousand dollars restitution to koch industries big corporation

from david and charles koch for taking down one of their websites momentarily with adidas a few years ago now meanwhile journalist glenn greenwald who is the journalist that was working with edward snowden all of those n.s.a. leaks is reportedly working with the founder of e-bay which is the parent company of pay pal on a new media venture so i want to bring up a couple of tweets that the e-bay founder wrote his name is pierre omidyar he tweeted whatever you think of at wiki leaks tactics we know more about our world through their journalism donate the paper how but this sort of meltzer cation considering pay pal was part of the blockade that attempted to start wiki leaks of those funds so i want to read another tweet that says this transparency organization responded by saying the blockade has cost wiki leaks tens of millions we announced successful changes in policy right after the lawsuit so what do you make of this is agreement and more importantly. how kind of saying this that these

leaks are ok these ones are not it is a bit selective but also human there's a lot of players involved here you know this really shouldn't come down to just what peter says or with julian or anyone from wiki leaks says there's a lot of people involved. obviously massive massive corporations but you know it does raise a lot of interesting points about bill one is a leak ok one is a digital protest ok and who's got the money to say what can and can't work but you know going into this pay pal was looking at receiving upwards of five million dollars in restitution for the crimes alleged crimes committed by these hacktivists and now they're looking at receiving around eighty k. so a lot of people were building this up disabled you know people had all the time to go out there and say you know don't tackle these kids don't go put them in jail and recently just made a statement this week saying you know he wanted me. see for the people fourteen it

was hoping that you know by pleading his case at least bring them a little bit of media attention because it's been almost three years now and not many people talking about those two weapon to surrender blake thank you so much for filling us in and i will turn our viewers to your website r.t. dot com for the latest on all of these cases well fast food workers in over one hundred cities put down their specialism picked up their picket signs today in a nationwide protest for better wages the goal of the protest is to raise the federal minimum wage to fifteen dollars an hour which would amount to about thirty one thousand two hundred dollars for a full time employee before taxes now that's just about eight thousand dollars above the federal poverty line for a family of four at the moment right now the minimum wage in the country is seven dollars twenty five cents an hour in some states that number is much higher but so is the average cost of living here the eight states with the highest minimum wages they range from eight dollars an hour in california and massachusetts to nine

dollars and nine hundred cents in washington and the home went to washington state's international airport might be the testing grounds for the future of minimum wage the city of sea-tac is the first in the country to approve a fifteen dollar wage floor last month voters passed a ballot measure that would give airport workers a paper raise of more than double the current federal minimum beginning next year and president obama addressing minimum wages in a speech yesterday said other cities might need to soon follow suit you know that there are airport workers and fast food workers. versus just. retail sales people who work their tails off. and are still living at or barely above poverty and that's why it's well past the time to raise a minimum wage that in real life thank you all right was that harry truman was in office for more on the fast food protests we turn now to our to correspondent marino. what began here in new york city one year ago with just two hundred

employees has exploded into arguably the biggest wave of protest in the history of america's fast food industry thousands of fast food employees in more than one hundred cities throughout this country have walked off the job thursday demanding an increase in minimum wage and the right to unionize now this movement is being spearheaded by an organization called fast food forward and the fast food workers that have joined the strike work at major restaurants like wendy's mcdonald's burger king and k.f.c. now while fast food remains a two hundred billion dollar industry the median wage for the service workers like the cooks and the cashiers in the group nationwide is just eight dollars and ninety four cents an hour here in new york city it's even worse with the minimum wage being seven dollars and twenty five cents an hour now because of the low wages and

many of the employees if not most employed at fast food restaurants are living in poverty forced to watch earn to food stamps or soup kitchens just to put food on the table for their family many other fast food workers that i spoke with told me that they live in shelters because their salary is enough to even cover the rent i don't know by the grace of god i am. i am in a shelter or trying to get out of there and i can do it because i don't get paid that much some struggling you know and that's why i'm here as one of these we will four million dollars yeah so for right to take it a family who have a single people with that's the american way and i believe all fall who's in vision a country not full cooperation before the working man and by mother make way too much money for us to be treated. and where the one will give them the money the one

earns and then if they were not because they're the one who takes the money home to make matters worse this problem is only growing low wage jobs have accounted for the bulk of new jobs added during the so-called u.s. work carbury in addition to retail and fast food are among the fastest growing sectors in the u.s. economy now what these protesters are demanding is that minimum wage be raised to fifteen dollars an hour so far only one city in washington state has met those demands companies like mcdonald's burger king and wendy's have said that their low wage jobs are stepping stones to better ones but reports reveal that managerial positions make up just two percent of all jobs in the fast food industry these chain restaurants also say right raising the minimum wage will drive up prices forcing some workers out of jobs ironically the majority of workers have already

walked off the job as you can see by this crowd around me that are doing so to fight for a basic a decent living wage an opportunity to just step one foot into the worlds of the so called american dream reporting from new york marina r.t. well here's a fun fact for you in new york city the death rate is falling and life expectancy is rising however tonight's resident takes a look at the obesity epidemic facing new yorkers especially in poor neighborhoods . and. there's an old adage about my hometown. out of new york city that if you can make

it here you can make it anywhere but according to new data from the department of health fewer people are actually making it here rather they're being sidelined by their very own growing weight according to new data about one in every four people who go to hospitals in the big apple have obesity related to diabetes officials say we're experiencing a diabetes epidemic where about one in nine adults are now diagnosed with the disease about six hundred fifty thousand new yorkers were diagnosed with it in two thousand and eleven alone record numbers are dying from diabetes and related issues like andy taishan and kidney failure in fact about one new yorker dies from diabetes related issues every ninety minutes nowadays thing is new york's overall death rate is folly and its life expectancy is improving we're only seeing sharp rises in diabetes related health issues in specific places this and guess where

those might be. in the poor in places like the bronx and harlem obesity related hospitalization rates there are approximately eight times the rates of rich neighborhoods like the upper east side or soho shocker i know officials lay the blame squarely on crappy diets of fatty foods and sweet drinks now rich people have more time to learn about the benefits of kale while poor folk are busy working like ten jobs and rich people can afford to pay fifteen dollars for a four ounce shot of high and infused wheat grass while poor folk have to feed an entire family for the day for that same fifteen bucks but despite our hardships we got a wise enough about food new yorkers bloomberg has already banned trans fats and mandated calorie counts we're bombarded with his good blue cities to undercut the big soda ban that sort of got us to realize the drinks are bad for us. and we've got all

those ads on t.v. now warning us about how fruit juices are just mostly diet sugar water come on new yorkers get it to get hurt this is new york we should be hospitalized for guys shot wounds or getting hit by taxis not for getting sick from eating crap just because horrible greedy corporations like mcdonald's and coca-cola want to sell those cheap food that will make us sick doesn't mean we have to eat it with gatorade use that you are experienced and fend for ourselves here no one else is going to do it because when it comes to our health the bottom line is another old adage it's up to new york and new york tonight let's talk about that by following me on twitter add there with. that does it for now for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash

r t america and check out our web site or to dot com slash usa for the latest information that's coming out of the life and legacy of the great leader who passed away this afternoon nelson mandela he was ninety five years old also follow me on twitter at meghan underscore lopez but for now have a great night. president obama's trust where this is called into question declining poll numbers show that americans don't have faith in their leader in chief just how far down as you fall and can we improve his image before it's too late frank luntz gives us the latest on obama's unpopularity plus p.r. strategist howard bragman and political commentator tanya acker on what the president needs to do now to regain the confidence of the american people it's all next politicking with larry.

hey i marinate and this is boston here are some of the stories we're tracking for you today first up what the frak is up with these earthquakes in texas r.t. correspondent guy.